After all, the Bush administration has done exactly what so many people
have recommended — impose overwhelming
force to achieve victory. Since 9/11 I've received dozens (perhaps hundreds)
of emails from people calling for exactly that. Here's a paraphrased summary
of what these emails say:

The only thing the
terrorists understand is force. The U.S. should blitzkrieg them with so
much force that they realize that their cause is futile. For every one
of ours that dies in a terrorist attack, we should kill a hundred of
them, without worrying whether the dead were terrorists or innocent
bystanders. You can't reason with these people; they don't understand
anything but force.

None of the emails revealed that the writers had arrived at their
conclusions through actual discussions with terrorists, but no matter. The
email writers were joined by a lot of people in the press, radio, and
television in their belief that the only answer was overwhelming force.

It's time to take off the
velvet gloves. It's time to stop being Mr. Nice Guy [sic]. It's time to
cease worrying about collateral damage.

It's time to show all
Iraqis and their brothers and sisters throughout the Middle East that it
doesn't pay to mess with Americans. They need to see there is no profit
in it. They need to understand we mean business. They need to accept
things will never be the same in Iraq. They need to feel the heat. They
need to be provided with visible disincentives to further attacks on
Americans, free Iraqis and other coalition partners. . . .

We should not try to gain
an international consensus for this action. We should not apologize for
it. We should not restrain our Air Force and our artillery batteries
from wreaking devastation. We should not expose our ground troops to
unnecessary risks.

In other words, we may
need to flatten Fallujah. We may need to destroy it. We may need to
grind it, pulverize it and salt the soil, as the Romans did with
troublesome enemies.

Quite frankly, we need to
make an example out of Fallujah.

Here's a chance for
justice. Here's an opportunity to show the people of the Middle East it
doesn't pay to resort to barbarism and terrorism.

In effect, the U.S. military took Mr. Farah's advice. The city was
pulverized. At least 600 Iraqis — mostly
civilians — died in the American attack,
which was a reprisal for the deaths of just 4 Americans.

As John Pilger
has pointed out, this is no different from when members of the World War
II French Resistance (the same "spineless" French that conservatives like to
make jokes about) killed or kidnapped a Nazi in occupied towns, causing the
Nazis to shoot dozens of innocent Frenchmen in reprisal.

In Iraq the reprisal failed. The Americans eventually had to withdraw
entirely from the city, and content themselves with an occasional
bombardment. Now
the city is run by Islamic emirs and mujahideen who enforce Islamic law
strictly. (There probably are quite a few Fallujah residents who would
prefer Saddam Hussein to either the Americans or the Islamic emirs.)

But notice the important outcome: once the Americans abandoned
Fallujah, so did the news media. We no longer get daily news reports
about that city. Few people in the U.S. are aware of what's going on in
Fallujah.

And, contrary to expectations, Iraqis seem to mistake American
"liberators" for foreign occupiers.

So what should Bush do — assuming that
he's more concerned about reelection than about the future of Iraq?

As I see it, he has two choices available to him:

Door #1

The first choice is to elevate the force being used against the Iraqi
resistance. He can send more troops to Iraq —
even reactivating the draft, if necessary to acquire enough bodies. In other
words, he can keep moving in the direction he's been going.

As we've seen, this hasn't worked out very well, it has produced
skepticism even among some of his supporters, and it should now be evident
that no amount of force is going to "pacify" Iraq.

Door #2

The second choice is to do what he did in Afghanistan
— declare victory and withdraw attention
from the battleground, taking the country out of the news and allowing
people to believe George Bush when he says that all is well.

Afghanistan is a
mess. There has been no victory there. But because the President
turned our attention to Iraq, no one notices the violent Civil War that
rages in Afghanistan.

So Bush could go before the American people in October and say something
like this:

My fellow Americans, I
have very good news for you. We continue to win the War on Terror. Our
latest victory is the liberation of Iraq. The country now has tens of
thousands of Iraqi security police, trained by the good men and women of
the U.S. military, and the new democratic government of Iraq is able to
govern the country peacefully.

In short, we have
prevailed — just as we thought we
would.

Accordingly, we can now
begin withdrawing our troops from the country. Today I have ordered the
immediate return home of 20,000 American soldiers and marines. The
withdrawals will continue in an orderly way, and nearly all the troops
will be home by February.

At the request of the
Iraqi government, we will maintain six military bases in Iraq
— in order to protect the country
from foreign attack. This will require a token force of 15,000 American
troops to remain there indefinitely, but all other American forces will
be home by February.

We also have signed an
agreement with the Iraqi government to buy all of Iraq's oil production
— guaranteeing that Iraq will be
able to grow, be self-sufficient, and prosper economically.

Needless to say, there will be voices raised that say this pronouncement
is a sham. There is no peace, no liberation in Iraq.

But a majority of Americans will never hear the rebuttals, only the
President's claims. After all, there were people in late 2002 pointing out
that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was a stupid idea, but their arguments
received only a fraction of the news coverage that was given to Bush's
claims.

Expecting John Kerry to take apart anything George Bush says is about as
realistic as expecting George Bush to keep a campaign promise. And CNN, Fox
News, and the broadcast networks will interview plenty of administration
sycophants who will congratulate the President on a job well done.

Once the election is over and Bush is safely in the White House for
another four years, anything can happen. But Bush will be concerned then
about his "legacy," and he may have come to realize that attacking another
country could lead to another Iraqi-type disaster. And he may be restrained
as well from going back on his word to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

Once the U.S. troops are gone, any killing in Iraq will no longer be big
news in America. Iraq will be off the front pages, out of the Evening News,
and out of the minds of American citizens. Like Afghanistan, Iraq will be
thought of as just one more "victory" in the War on Terrorism.

I can't predict the future. But if I can think of such a ruse, why can't
Dick Cheney or Karl Rove?

Let's just say I won't be surprised if George Bush announces in October that
victory has been achieved and
the troops will be coming home from Iraq.